“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“Dimly, through what you would call history, hardly remembered, there was such a state. It was a state of agony in which the powers of creativity and existence were known, but the ways to produce them were not known.

“This is the lesson that All That Is had to learn, and that could not be taught. This is the agony from which creativity originally was drawn, and its reflection is still seen.”

“Yet the agony itself was used as a means, and the agony itself served as an impetus, strong enough so that All That Is initiated within Itself the means to be.

“The first state of agonized search for expression may have represented the birth throes of All That Is as we know It. Pretend, then, that you possessed within yourself the knowledge of all the world’s masterpieces in sculpture and art, that they pulsed as realities within you, but that you had no physical apparatus, no knowledge of how to achieve them, that there was neither rock nor pigment nor source of any of these, and you ached with the yearning to produce them. This, on an infinitesimally small scale, will perhaps give you, as an artist [this was addressed to Rob, of course], some idea of the agony and impetus that was felt.

“In other words, All That Is existed in a state of being, but without the means to find expression for Its being. This was the state of agony of which I spoke. Yet it is doubtful that without this ‘period’ of contracted yearning, All That Is could concentrate Its energy sufficiently enough to create the realities that existed in probable suspension within It.

“The agony and the desire to create represented Its proof of Its own reality. The feelings, in other words, were adequate proof to All That Is that It was.

“It, of Itself and from that state, has given life to infinities of possibilities. From its agony, It found the way to burst forth in freedom, through expression, and in so doing gave existence to individualized consciousness. Therefore is It rightfully jubilant. Yet all individuals remember their source, and now dream of All That Is as All That Is once dreamed of them. And they yearn toward that immense source … and yearn to set It free and give It actuality through their own creations.

“The motivating force is still All That Is, but individuality is no illusion. Now in the same way do you give freedom to the personality fragments within your own dreams and for the same reason. And you create for the same reason, and within each of you is the memory of that primal agony—that urge to create and free all probable consciousness into actuality.